Primseluer ???

[Pam L in Mid Tenn]

Probably misspelled but don't have it right now. LOL

 

Anyway, our library has the Primsuluer Spanish program on audio. Are there any workbooks that I can buy to go with that??

 

Does anyone here have any information at all to share?

 

TIA,

PAM

Edited January 16, 2010 by Pam L in Mid Tenn
added question

[Pam L in Mid Tenn]

Bump up.

 

Please share ANY opinion on Primseluer Spanish audio CDs.

Thanks!

[Julie in MN]

Well, since no one is around...

 

My older dd used Pimsleur French. It was more of a "tourist" class, with a focus on things like ordering from a restaurant. But that's typical of almost all foreign language programs.

 

Pimsleur didn't have any workbooks that I remember. My dd used a workbook called French The Easy Way (we've had a discussion on the boards lately about this in Spanish).

 

She also watched videos and tried other CDs. It was a mix that year, but she passed French 2 according to the teacher I had evaluate her. The Pimsleur CDs was one of the things that helped keep her listening/speaking, which a workbook doesn't do. And I think I found it at the library, or anyways it didn't cost me very much, because it was just one piece we used.

 

Julie

[Kareni]

No opinion on Spanish, however, my daughter did use Pimsleur Italian tapes before a trip to Italy. My teen did the first eight or twelve lessons and found it very valuable. (Especially valuable if your child wants to learn how to order a beer or wine!!)

 

Here are a couple of older threads that might have some help for you:

 

In which Dee decides to learn Spanish

 

and

 

I do not like Rosetta Stone for Spanish, but I do like Madrigals; What could I use...

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Nan in Mass]

I did them and then went to Spain for a week. I was able to order in restaurants and converse a little. It made me feel much safer to be able to ask directions and things like that. If you want to be able to speak a language and really use it, they are good beginning. Personally, I don't ever intend to learn a new spoken language without doing Pimsleur first. They get rave reviews from everyone I know.

 

However, whether they will suit you depends on your goals. If you want to fulfill a high school language requirement and then go on to take the language in college, then you probably should suppliment. My oldest did Pimsleur Spanish 1 (about 30 lesson, if I remember correctly) in 8th grade and then took Spanish 2 at the high school. He struggled a lot at the beginning. He did go on to take Spanish 3, rather than backing up, but there were many things his classmates learned that he hadn't learned. On the other hand, he was better at speaking it. My middle one did Pimsleur Japanese 1 in high school and I gave him a half credit for conversational Japanese on his transcript.

 

Pimsleur is easier to do if you know how languages work and you don't tackle a language that you have no familiarity with or which is very different from one you already know. The Spanish was fairly easy for me because I already spoke French. My middle one did the Japanese fairly easily because he had spent three months in Japan and knew some Japanese already. My oldest had had no grammar at all and spoke nothing but English when he tackled Pimsleur Spanish, and he struggled a lot more. He had no concept of verbs needing endings that match their subjects, of tenses, or of nominative or accusative or dative pronouns, for example. I did a little explaining, but mostly he just straight memorized how to say everything without organizing it grammatically for himself. It worked, though, which is pretty amazing. My youngest tried Pimsleur Arabic but got stuck on the numbers, which he couldn't keep straight. He is 15 now and says that he thinks he could do it now, especially if he found the numbers written someplace and memorized them separately first.

 

Pimsleur works by teaching you sentence patterns with a fairly limited vocabulary. It assumes you will learn other vocabulary words later. For example, it teaches you to say, "I would like some coffee." Then you might learn the words for coke and beer and water, but it leaves it up to you to learn to say orange juice, milk, wine, coco, and other drinks. I like this system because it concentrates on getting you using the language first and leaves you to grow your own vocabulary according to your own needs on your own later, but it doesn't match very well with the standard classroom approach, which is usually to learn lots of words for things and then to leave you to get good at using them later, on your own. I can expand my vocabulary fairly easily on my own either with Vocabulearn tapes or just plain by reading with a dictionary, but I have a much harder time learning to say things, so I appreciate Pimsleur. As I said, though, it depends on what you are going to do with the language. If I were going to do high school language at home, I would do Pimsleur and then about half way through (lesson 15 or so), I would add in a workbook like French the Easy Way. That would provide reading and writing practice, more organized grammar, and some more vocabulary words.

 

If you are a very visual learner and need to see something written in order to remember it, you will probably have a hard time with Pimsleur. I am visual, but I find that learning without seeing the words forces me to learn the language orally (even if it takes a bit longer and is a bit harder), making it so that I can speak it. If I see the words, then I just remember what they look like, not what they sound like spoken fast, and wind up not being able to talk or understand if someone speaks to me. I, however, am not an extreme case of visual. I like being forced to learn a language in the way that I am going to use it and not having to go through a translating process in my head for every conversation. I think my mother would hate Pimsleur, though. There is a reading booklet that teaches you to read the language. You can do this along with each CD or do it at the end. My middle one skipped this for Japanese, and I skipped it for Spanish (because I didn't want to be able to imagine easily what the word LOOKED like), but my youngest did it for Arabic and said that it worked well, although it was strange being able to read words that he didn't know what meant.

 

If you do do them, don't be afraid to change the way you use them. They say to do one 1/2 hour lesson every single day, repeating as needed until you get 80% right, not skipping weekends. My middle one had to do each half hour lesson morning and night for several days before he got it. Doing it once a day was impossible for him. He also had trouble doing it in the car because he got distracted looking out the window. My youngest liked playing the more mindless sort of video games while he did them; it kept his brain awake and paying attention. I find that I have to do them while I am walking in order for them to stick, and I do best if I do two lessons in a row each day (Day 1: 1+2, Day 2:2+3, Day 3:3+4, etc.). I have to have a bigger dose than 1/2 an hour before I can make it stick. Often, I need to repeat a lesson a few more days, too, before I remember it. We definately couldn't skip weekends. That is just us, though. We are seive-brained about things like this.

 

The full programs are expensive, but it is easy to try them without paying hundreds of dollars. You can get them from the library for a few weeks, or you can buy the short version (8 or 10 lessons) for about $20. That is enough for you to see if they work for you.

 

Just some things to consider. Sorry this is so long.

 

-Nan

[KAR120C]

They're really good for the speaking/listening part, but there's almost no reading (or absolutely no reading with some editions...) and not much generalization of the grammar. So we've used it with a grammar workbook and a reader.

 

It is fairly beer-heavy. LOL Not a problem for us, but some might find it a little excessive. DS finds it hysterical to learn how to order beer, say how much he likes beer, ask if the beer is cold, complain that he only likes cold beer, negotiate who's paying for the beer, compare different prices for beer... when he's still years away from being legal to drink beer! ;)

 

The one thing I think Pimsleur has done for us that nothing else has is speed up DS's response time. He can figure things out fine, but when there's a CD about to interrupt him if he doesn't spit it out, he picks up the pace nicely. But I think you definitely need some kind of grammar supplement so you can get from beer to all the other topics that work in similar sentences. And I like having a reader, just to make sure he's literate too.

[Julie in MN]

DS finds it hysterical to learn how to order beer, say how much he likes beer, ask if the beer is cold, complain that he only likes cold beer, negotiate who's paying for the beer, compare different prices for beer...

 

:lol:

[Big Buckin' Longhorn]

We went through the entire Pimsleur Spanish cd's, parts 1 through 3, as they were available at our library. Ours had pamphlets so that you could see the words written out that were introduced in each lesson, but no actual workbooks. I think they're great. My son and I both learned a lot.

 

I speak pretty good Spanish anyway because I used to be a social worker here in central Texas and it sort of comes with the territory, plus my spouse is Hispanic. This did help me learn the "proper" way to say some things, not just "Tex-Mexy" so that was good, LOL.

[Big Buckin' Longhorn]

It is fairly beer-heavy. LOL Not a problem for us, but some might find it a little excessive. DS finds it hysterical to learn how to order beer, say how much he likes beer, ask if the beer is cold, complain that he only likes cold beer, negotiate who's paying for the beer, compare different prices for beer... when he's still years away from being legal to drink beer! ;)

 

 

 

We found this to be hilarious too. That guy really likes his cerveza. :lol:

[Pam L in Mid Tenn]

Thanks for all the replies. I got what I was looking for!

:)

[Cindyg]

I love the teaching method in Pimsleur (listen and repeat). The beer obsession is hysterical.

 

If you wanted to strike up a conversation with a total stranger and invite him/her to a bar to drink beer, this is definitely the program for you. (Kidding, of course! Sort of.)

 

I seriously do like this teaching method, and I wish it were incorporated into other more grammar-based programs.

[Nan in Mass]

Yup GRIN.

Learning a language entirely orally, without written material, means that when I go to speak to someone or listen to them (no written material), I can do it. Another feature of Pimsleur's listen and repeat method is timing: the tapes try to have you repeat what you have learned at the in-another-minute-I-will-have-forgetten point, slowing increasing the intervals. As I said, you may have to alter the timing a bit to suit yourself (I have to do two lessons in a row and review in my head at intervals during the day) but it works amazingly well.